Easter Projects

With Easter only a few days away, I thought I'd do a post on projects that I have seen recently. I'll keep adding onto the list as I find things.

Easter Eggs and Other Foods

Easter Eggs with Dried Flowers - If you click on the tutorial link, there's even more than just the dried flowers. Pretty cool stuff.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/04/how-to_decorate_easter_eggs_wi.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954

Colored Tea Eggs - This just look uber amazing. I bet you can use it for halloween eyeballs too. hmmm...
http://www.barefootkitchenwitch.com/the_barefoot_kitchen_witc/2009/04/coloring-eggs.html

Dabbled Easter Eggs - These look pretty cool too.
http://www.dabbled.org/2009/04/easter-eggs-12-interesting-ways-to.html

Rice Krispies Easter Eggs - Cute, and creative. There are also other ones there like rice krispie easter bunnies and spring flowers.
http://www.ricekrispies.com/Display.aspx?kic=true&recipe_id=1591

AllRecipes Easter Page - Allrecipes always has good recipes to try... Easter is no exception with ideas for an easter buffet or how to host an easter egg hunt, etc.
http://allrecipes.com/features/holidays/easter/2009.aspx


Peeps

Homemade Marshmallow Peeps - Easter just wouldn't be Easter without Peeps. IMHO
http://www.twigandthistle.com/blog/2009/03/diy-marshmallow-peeps/

Easter Turduken - Quite inventive. I really want to make one of these. You have to see it to believe it. A creme egg inside a peep inside a chocolate bunny. Seriously, check it out.
http://asteroid.divnull.com/2006/04/easter-turducken/

Peep Wars - Always fun to do at least once. Here are some photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moocow/sets/72057594108017526/

Peep Wars Video




Other Things

Weave a Paper Easter Basket - These are just cute.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/04/how_to_weave_a_paper_easter_ba.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954

Country Bunny - Very cute.
http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=1390#rate


Here are some other links of collective projects.

http://www.allcrafts.net/easter.htm

http://tipnut.com/easter-extravaganza/

http://www.craftster.org/blog/?p=1109 - this one has a bunny napkin. cute.

http://www.marthastewart.com/easter - and of course, Martha Stewart's page for Easter.

If I find more, I'll update this post. :-)

Happy Easter everyone.

Happy New Year

I've been on "vacation" for the last two weeks, and have been really bad about posting things. So, sorry about that. But I thought I should, at the very least, do one more post for the year and say "Happy New Year" to you all. Here's to a great 2009 with lots more adventures. Take care all.

Fabric Gift Tags

I was thinking about fusing some fabric onto cardstock one day, and decided to google up how to do it. Anyway, I found this site that shows how to make gift tags by fusing fabric onto cardstock. So, I gave it a try. Thought it would look really good with matching cinch bags like the ones I made a month or so ago. Anyway, here's my how-to.
Materials:

• Card stock
• fabric
• no sew adhesive (heat n bond) fusing material.
• Ironing board and iron
 

Download Template Here. (for 8 x 11 paper, not 12 x 12)


Instructions:
1. First, I start out with penciling the lines that I'm going to cut for the tags


2. Next, I cut the adhesive to the size of the cardstock.

3. The adhesive material has a paper side and the adhesive side. Put the adhesive side next to the wrong side of the cardstock (where you don't have the drawn lines). Place both the adhesive and the cardstock lined up on top of an ironing board with the adhesive's paper side up. Iron, the sheets together, staying at each spot for about 2 seconds. Once you've thoroughly fused the two pieces together your about ready to introduce the fabric.

4. Cut the fabric to the same size as the cardstock and adhesive.
5. Remove the paper side of the adhesive. The adhesive should stay with the cardstock as you peel the paper away.
6. Put together the fabric's wrong side to the cardstock's newly fused adhesive side and place onto ironing board fabric side up. Iron all together same rule as last time... about 2 seconds on each spot. Be careful when ironing the fabric on. Start with one side and work your way slowly to the other, or the fabric might bunch up. You should now have a good fuse between the cardstock and fabric. Let's finish it up.

7. Alright, so remember those lines you drew on? Time to use them and cut out your tags. Don't forget to erase the lines once your done.
8. Use a hole puncher, and punch a hole out for the ribbon. I used an 8” piece of ribbon for a tie down.

9. In addition, you can stamp on a To:/From: label onto the card... and there you have it. Optionally, instead of drawing lines or stamping, you can print out some gift tag designs onto cardstock and fuse fabric on the other side.

These cards pictured are about 1 1/2” x 3” and a 12 x 12 cardstock gave me 30 gift tags.

Now that that's all done, all I need to do is buy the gifts to tag. :-) Happy Shopping!

Looking Back At Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is now done with (except for the left overs in the fridge) and the Christmas season is upon us. But before we totally leave it in the dust, a few notes for next year. :-) I've also included various pictures. Please note that the text next to the picture doesn't necessarily go with the picture. :-) I'm adding them on randomly.

Pomegranate martinis... Those were super tasty! Goes in the “must do that again” list.

Planting carrots in late August or early September will give us good carrots for Thanksgiving. Those in the picture were pulled up Thanksgiving morning. We ended up roasting a couple with the turkey innards and cooking up some gravy, and using some of them with the spinach dip appetizers that my sister made.

Delicious!

2 or 3 different appetizers worked out really well... it wasn't too much to set up and it kept people still able to eat a pretty hearty dinner.

For lox, stick to sliced baguette or bagels instead of crackers. Crackers tasted really good, but we think we may have liked the toasty yet soft texture of the bagel instead.

Wear gloves when cutting sweet potatoes. Don't know if it was because they were par-boiled or what, but once I finished cutting them my hands were a bit yellowish. A few washings had to be done to get it off... so gloves next time.

A little goes a long way with sweet potatoes. I ended up making sweet potato fries too.... why not the fryer was out. To make them, I par-boiled the potatoes, let them cool, cut into fries and fry up.

Yum!

Double the cake recipe of the roll. The pan I had was a little larger than the recipe called for, so the cake part of the roll was really really thin. Next time, double the recipe and make a bigger roll.

The frosting for it was outstanding – not too sweet, creamy and went really well with the pecans. I bet we can use the same recipe and fold in some coffee syrup for our buche du noel.

Do a really really good job of greasing the corners of the cake pan. It stuck... a lot... and with the cake being so thin, it tore away in the corner. I just cut the end result into a rectangle before rolling it up, and I got to try out the cake, so all wasn't bad.

Place fryer at a well lit place next time (or bring better lights near fryer). We place the fryer in the middle of our back lawn for safety, but that made it farther away from the patio lights. We had a small flashlight while we were doing things, but definitely need more light next time.

When frying the turkey, pull out the turkey when internal temperature is 150ish. The carry over temperature took care of the rest and it ended up being so juicy.

Next year, when letting the turkey rest, we want to try to let it rest uncovered to see if the skin stays crispier.

Leftovers will make really good turkey soup... or at least ours will. :-)

Using warmers would probably have helped with the timing.

All in all, I think Thanksgiving was a success. We had fun, hope yours was a success too.

Update [12-3-08]: This last picture shows the zucchini quiches that we added onto the appetizer list last minute because I found frozen shredded zucchini in my freezer. :-)

Update [12-5-08]: A friend just reminded me that instead of using foil and greasing it for the pumpkin roll, just use parchment paper... that stuff works wonders. I should have thought of that -- next time.

Thanksgiving Update

So, I thought I'd give a brief update of what I've done for Thanksgiving during the weekend along with some pictures.

1. Grocery shopping for everything but the veggies that we need fresh.



2. Built bolo ball set. I'm hopefully going to do a post on this tonight as well.





3. Toasted the bread cubes for the stuffing.










4. Made pumpkin cookies (well, this is actually for a work potluck, so I'll be making more)









5. Started the gravlax. It has to "marinate" in a mixture of salt, sugar, pepper & dill for 48 hours.







6. Proof baked the sweet dinner rolls and threw them in the freezer.



Things are definitely shaping up. Hope yours is too. :-)

Planning for Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving only one week away, it's time to seriously start panicking. Especially if dinner is at your house and you still need to clean and make the menu. If you sense a bit of panic on my part, well you're absolutely right. Ahhhh!

So, I guess the first thing that needs to be done is to decide on the menu. This will depend on how many people are coming and whether there are any dietary restrictions. Oh, and it might not be the best time to try out all new recipes... or at least a lot of them. Some are fine, but a lot of them are risky for two reason. 1. You don't know what to expect and how it's supposed to come out. Is it supposed to be that color, shape, texture? And 2. new recipes tend to take longer than we anticipate, thus throwing off your entire schedule. On the other hand, recipe websites typically have ratings and reviews that are quite reliable when the numbers of ratings/reviews are high, and you can plan to spend more time on those recipes. So... I guess, it's ultimately up to you. Just giving you some things to consider. :-)

So, back to the menu. Generally the menu will include some appetizers, the turkey, sides, and dessert. Thanksgiving usually ends up as almost an all day event in that people come early, munch and play all day then enjoy the feast. So, for all day we'll usually have nuts or chips around. Something that doesn't need refrigeration and something that can be picked at. Then we bring out the appetizers around mid-afternoon. In the past, we've gone overboard on the appetizers, making 4 or 5 different things. This was then followed by everyone being way to full to fully enjoy the turkey and sides. So, this year, I've decided to limit the appetizers to maybe 2 things. This year, we're going to have spinach dip with veggies, chips and bread, and bagel chips, cream cheese and lox. They can be prepped that morning (at least individually) and just stay in the fridge til we're ready for them.

As for the turkey, we like the crispies of the deep fried turkey, so that's what we'll be having this year. Be sure to dry the turkey up as much as possible, and make sure it's fully defrosted. I was watching a Time Warp episode on the Discovery Channel where they put a frozen turkey in the pot of hot oil, and well, let's just say... we definitely should not do that. Scary stuff! Check it out!

Anyway, once we feel like everyone is ready to eat... or almost anyway, we'll announce the lowering of the turkey. I know, it's kinda funny, but when you're about to put a 17 lb turkey whole into a vat of hot oil, it's a sight to see. Don't forget tho, to account for some time to heat up the oil. Heating up the oil will take about 45 minutes.

While the oil is heating , you can prep/cook all of the sides. I go pretty simple on sides and pick the ones that take only a little bit of time to set up then just goes into the oven. This let's you spend some time enjoying the day with your family. After all, that is the most important part of the holiday. For sides, we're going to have stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and creamed corn as well as some dinner rolls and well... rice (just in case, I am filipino after all).

You'll want everything to be pretty much ready to go by the time the turkey is resting. That's a big tip on it's own. Never serve the turkey right after you finished cooking it (taking it out of the oven or fryer). It needs to rest for 20 to 30 minutes before you even carve into it. This allows all the juices to go back into the meat.

Last of all... Dessert. Depending on the dessert, they can usually be prepared a day or two before. I like doing this because then you don't have to worry about it at all on the day of Thanksgiving except to remember to serve it. This year we plan to make a pumpkin roll the day before and just leave it in the fridge til it's ready to serve. If I have time, I also would like to make some iced pumpkin cookies because even though you're probably full from the big huge dinner you just had, one little cookie doesn't seem like too much. :-) Also, these things go well with coffee, which would be good to combat the sleepy side-effects of turkey.

Okay, snap back to the present (just one week before the big day). Now that you've settled on a menu, you have to take into account that your guests need to be entertained. Not that watching me running frantically around the kitchen isn't entertaining... but you know. So, be sure to have something available for all of you to play. Here are some ideas.

• Football
• Poker
• Game console of choice (PS2, PS3, Wii) and games (Guitar Hero :-) )
• Karaoke
• Board games
• DVD trivia
• Bolo golf (also known as ladder golf... I'm hoping to post about this soon – stay tuned).
• DVD movies

These are good ideas for before and after the dinner if people are still there and awake. :-)

Okay so here's the menu
Appetizers

• Spinach Dip with veggies, chips and bread
• Bagel chips, cream cheese and lox

Main

• Deep Fried Turkey (with Creole seasoning)

Sides

• Sweet Dinner Rolls
• Awesome Sausage Apple Cranberry Stuffing
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Slow Cooker Sweet Potato with Applesauce
• Green Bean Casserole
• Creamed Corn

Dessert

• Pumpkin Roll
• Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Okay so I think this is the schedule.

Weekend before

• clean house
• proof bake dinner rolls
• shop for groceries if you haven't already
• take the turkey out of the freezer and into the fridge.
• Organize all the recipes you're going to use.

2 days before

• make dessert
• make gravlax
  

1 day before

• make spinach dip
• cut veggies (better yet, get baby carrots... done)
• make croutons for stuffing and prep other things for stuffing
  

Morning of Thanksgiving

• put champagne in fridge
• buy newspaper :-)
• set up sweet potato in slow cooker (will make the house smell great by the time the guests come)
• check defrosting of turkey and start drying/draining
• peel potatoes and keep in water
• put out nuts and chips
• last minute cleanup
• set up games/activities
• cut gravlax
  

Afternoon

• prep the dinner table
• prep appetizers
  

~ 2 hours before dinner

• start heating up oil
• cook all the sides

~ 1 hour before

• cook rice
• start cooking turkey
• cook mashed potatoes
  

~ 20 minutes before dinner

• rest turkey
• brown dinner rolls
• turn off slow cooker and place all the food on the table or buffet counter.
• Give dogs their thanksgiving treat so they're busy while we eat
• take champagne out of the fridge
• light candles
• and call everyone to eat

TOUCHDOWN!
Eat, Drink & be Merry!
Don't forget the desserts.

Okay good. I plan to use this schedule myself so I hope I'm not forgetting anything. :-)
Good Luck with the planning.

Update [11-24-08]: I've decided to try making my own gravy this year. Without the pan drippings this might be a bit of a challenge. So, I googled it. I found this site that has a decent description of how to go about making gravy without pan drippings. Basically, you start with chicken stock add some of the parts of the turkey that is generally unused and some choice veggies and simmer some to reduce and concentrate the flavors. Then add some red wine (yum) and some thickener like cornstarch or flour (side note: be careful with the cornstarch... a little goes a long long way). Anyway, I'll post all the results after thanksgiving. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Card Making - Christmas Cards

Here are some of the cards I made this past weekend. I used scrapbooking paper for the card stock, and cut them to fit regular letter envelopes (~3 3/4" X 6 1/4").

World Card Making Day - This Saturday!

The first Saturday of October marks World Card Making Day. That day this year is this coming Saturday, October 4, 2008. In recognition of this day, I've compiled a few urls to help you celebrate.

I plan on making a couple of cards this weekend for christmas or maybe a 'just because' card. (I haven't decided yet). I'll post some of the cards that I make here... so look for them soon (in a couple of weeks). In the meantime, enjoy spending time with your crafting friends, make some cards, and make someone's day by giving them a homemade card.

While you're at it, you can make envelopes too. Below is a link for Envelope Glue (maybe it'll taste better than the normal envelopes).


Official World Card Making Day website.
http://www.worldcardmakingday.com/

Envelope Glue Recipe
http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=574#rate

Card Making Crafts
http://www.craftbits.com/viewCategory.do?categoryID=PAC#Card%20Making

Pop-up Lotus Card
http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2008/09/pop-up-lotus-card.html

Joann's Fabrics Card Making Projects
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat13878

Michaels Card Making Projects
http://www.michaels.com/art/online/projectlist?categoryid=104

Simple Pop-up Cards
http://robertsabuda.com/popmakesimple.asp

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Friday, September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. We decided to celebrate it a week early, and made it a part of our weekend adventure. To celebrate we watched all three Pirates of the Carribean movies, and enjoyed good comfort foods like golden nuggets (chicken nuggets), fish and chips, flavored popcorn, and Parrot Bay Sunrises (coconut rum, orange juice, and cranberry juice) while wearing little pirate eye patchs. (note: we didn't cover our eye during the movies, that would just be silly. ) ;-) It was great fun. Almost can't wait til next Talk like a Pirate Day, Aye! I be catchin' up on me pirate talk til then... Arr! (hehe... definitely gotta work on that).

It's nice to celebrate those silly "holidays" once in a while. So, I hope you get to enjoy a good talk like a pirate day even if you don't celebrate it on September 19th.

Updated[9/22/08]: Founds some new links that might be helpful next year.

Talk like a pirate translator
http://www.syddware.com/cgi-bin/pirate.pl

Make a treasure map
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_A_Treasure_Map_From_A_Paper_Bag